Adolf Hitler
The architect of genocide
Totalitarian terror and the Holocaust.
Reactionary NaziOne of 729 ideologies · enter the Nazi hall →- Role
- Dictator (Führer)
- Era
- 1889–1945
- Region
- Germany
- Social band
- Reactionary
- Placement
- +25 · +99 · −85
§ Where Adolf Hitler stands
3 axesHitler subordinated the economy to rearmament and conquest without abolishing private property. His regime dissolved the free trade unions in May 1933 and folded workers into the German Labour Front, the 1934 Law for the Organisation of National Labour made employers the 'leaders' of their firms, and the 1936 Four-Year Plan imposed state direction and autarky. Business stayed private but obeyed the state, hence a placement modestly right of centre.
Hitler built one of the most complete dictatorships in history. The Reichstag Fire Decree of February 1933 suspended civil liberties, the Enabling Act of 23 March let him rule by decree, all other parties were banned by July, and after President Hindenburg died in August 1934 he merged the offices of chancellor and president as Führer. Terror, the Gestapo and the camps enforced his will.
Racial antisemitism was the core of Hitler's worldview, set out in Mein Kampf (1925–26). The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped Jews of citizenship and banned their marriages with non-Jews, his authorisation launched the murder of disabled people under the T4 programme in 1939, and his war of racial conquest in the East culminated in the Holocaust.
How close are you to Adolf Hitler?
Three statements, one per axis. Answer them and we’ll drop you on the compass next to them.
§ The story
HistoricalAdolf Hitler (1889–1945) was the leader of the Nazi Party and dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945. Born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary, he failed to win a place at Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts, drifted through the city's hostels and moved to Munich in 1913. He served as a regimental runner in the Bavarian army during the First World War, then joined the small German Workers' Party in 1919 and soon led it, renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
After a failed putsch in 1923, Hitler pursued power through elections, exploiting the Depression to make the Nazis the largest party in the Reichstag; appointed chancellor on 30 January 1933, he destroyed German democracy within months. His drive for conquest started the Second World War in Europe with the invasion of Poland in 1939, a war that killed tens of millions, and his regime murdered some six million Jews in the Holocaust, alongside Roma, disabled people, Soviet prisoners and others. He killed himself in his Berlin bunker on 30 April 1945.
Notable for
- 01Established the Nazi dictatorship
- 02Initiated WWII in Europe
- 03Perpetrated the Holocaust
Key works & moments
- 1919Joins the small German Workers' Party in Munich, soon renamed the Nazi Party, and becomes its star speaker.
- 1923–24Leads the failed Beer Hall Putsch; in Landsberg prison he dictates Mein Kampf.
- 1933Appointed chancellor on 30 January; the Enabling Act of 23 March gives him dictatorial powers.
- 1935The Nuremberg Laws strip German Jews of citizenship and ban their marriages with non-Jews.
- 1939Invades Poland on 1 September, starting the Second World War in Europe.
- 1945Kills himself in his Berlin bunker on 30 April as Soviet troops close in.
In their own words
“If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!”
§ Minds closest to Adolf Hitler
All minds →
§ Also in the Nazi hall
Enter the hall →§ Common questions
4 answersWhat was Adolf Hitler's political ideology?
Adolf Hitler was the founder and leader of Nazism, or National Socialism: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a Reactionary Nazi. Economically he sat right of centre (+25), keeping private property but subordinating business to rearmament and autarky. On governance he stood at the very top of the authoritarian scale (+99), ruling as an absolute dictator through terror and a leader cult, and socially he was at the reactionary extreme (−85), driven by the racial antisemitism that culminated in the Holocaust.
Was Hitler left-wing or right-wing?
Far right. Historians overwhelmingly place Nazism on the extreme right: it was ultranationalist, racist and militarist, it destroyed the Communist and Social Democratic parties and the trade unions, and it allied with conservative elites, the army and big business to take power. Its economy was heavily state-directed, which is why some argue otherwise, but private ownership remained and the regime's goals were racial hierarchy and conquest rather than social equality.
Was Hitler a socialist?
No, despite the word in his party's name. The 1920 programme of the National Socialist German Workers' Party included anti-capitalist demands such as the nationalisation of trusts, but Hitler treated 'socialism' as a racial national community rather than common ownership. In power he abolished free trade unions, imprisoned socialists and communists in the first camps, kept industry in private hands and in 1934 had Gregor Strasser, former leader of the party's anti-capitalist wing, murdered. Historians therefore classify Nazism as far right, not socialist.
Which minds are closest to Adolf Hitler?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to Adolf Hitler are Heinrich Himmler (98% alike), Reinhard Heydrich (97% alike) and Joseph Goebbels (97% alike). The furthest is Emma Goldman (0% alike).